Debbie Lesko

In December 2019, she voted against impeaching President Trump. She said there is "no proof, none, that the president has committed an impeachable offense." In defending Trump, she falsely claimed that Trump had not asked the President of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.

Lesko won the Republican nomination for Arizona's 8th congressional district special election. She won the election on April 24, defeating Democratic nominee Hiral Tipirneni with 52.4% of the vote to Tipirneni's 47.6%. She won a full term in November 2018, again defeating Tipirneni. She is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, and is currently its only female member.

She won the election on April 24, beating Democratic candidate Hiral Tipirneni with 52.6% of the vote to Tipirneni's 47.4. The win was by a narrower margin than expected, with observers suggesting that it was indicative of a coming Democratic wave in the 2018 mid-term elections. Indeed, it was the closest race in the district since Bob Stump, then a Democrat, won his first term in what was then the 3rd District with only 47.5 percent of the vote (the district was renumbered as the 2nd in 2003 and has been the 8th since 2013).

In January 2018, Lesko's campaign committee, Re-elect Debbie Lesko for Senate, gave $50,000 to Conservative Leadership for Arizona, a federal PAC authorized to spend independently of other campaigns. It was created eight days before taking the money from Lesko's state campaign committee. The new PAC raised almost no other cash, records show, and the PAC used the money to support Lesko with yard signs, while her congressional campaign spent heavily on TV ads. Phil Lovas, a candidate in the Republican primary, complained to the Federal Election Commission and Arizona Attorney General alleging multiple violations in February 2018.

The PAC maneuver also prompted criticism from the other Lesko opponent in the Republican primary, Steve Montenegro, who accused Lesko of "illegally funneling money into her SuperPAC and knowingly lied about it by filing false campaign reports." A second complaint alleging federal campaign finance law violations was filed against Lesko in March 2018 by the Campaign Legal Center alleging that her transfer of $50,000 from her state campaign to an independent group that spent nearly all the cash backing her congressional run was illegal.

Asked at a debate involving seven candidates in January 2018 whether she believed that humans contribute to climate change, Lesko did not raise her hand. After a long pause, she said that the question was "loaded" and added, "Is some of it, maybe, human-caused? Possibly. But certainly not the majority of it. I think it just goes through cycles and it has to do a lot with the sun. So no, I'm not a global warming proponent."

During her 2018 campaign, Lesko made the construction of a border wall on the Mexico border the centerpiece of her campaign, and she pledged to back the Trump administration's hardline positions on border security and immigration reform.

Lesko has said that she would have voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the Republican Party's 2017 tax overhaul. She favors a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and said that "on the federal level, there has to be a lot of areas where we can cut spending."

In 2017, Lesko championed legislation that would allow payday lenders to provide loans at interest rates as high as 164% a year (the previous maximum was 36%).

In 2016, she opposed efforts to increase the minimum wage in Arizona to $10 by 2017 and then to $12 by 2020.

In 2016, Lesko crafted a measure that would give state utilities in Arizona the right to charge separate rates for customers who produced their own energy through solar panels. Lesko crafted the measure with the assistance of utilities.

Lesko served in the Arizona Senate from 2015 to 2018. She was president pro tempore of the Arizona Senate from 2017 to 2018. Lesko also served as a member of Arizona House of Representatives from 2009 until 2015.

Lesko faced a rematch with Tipirneni in a bid for a full two-year term and won with a slightly wider margin, taking 55.5% to Tipirneni's 44.5 percent. It was still the closest general election in the district in 42 years, and the closest that a Democrat had come to winning a full term in the district since Stump switched parties in 1982.

Lesko was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and grew up nearby, the daughter of Don and Delores Lorenz. She received a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Wisconsin and in the 1980s moved to Arizona, owning a construction sales business. She left an abusive marriage in the 1990s and later married Joe Lesko.

Debbie Lesko was the Republican nominee for the special election held to replace Congressman Trent Franks, who resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment. She faced the Democratic candidate, physician Hiral Tipirneni, in the general election on April 24. She was endorsed by President Donald Trump who said that Lesko was a "conservative Republican". It was the closest contest in what is now the 8th since 1976, when Bob Stump won what was then the 3rd District with just 47 percent of the vote (the district was renumbered as the 2nd in 2003, and has been the 8th since 2013).

Lesko strongly opposes the Equality Act, a bill that would expand the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. She urged Congress members to vote against the bill.

Debra Kay Lesko (née Lorenz; born November 14, 1958) is an American politician and a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Arizona's 8th congressional district . The district is located in the West Valley portion of the Valley of the Sun and includes Glendale, Surprise, Sun City, Peoria, and part of western Phoenix.